Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/77

Rh It has been proved by actual experiment on a large scale in certain sections of this country that ignorant foreign pauper labor in manufacturing industries is ultimately the most costly, and the aim of enlightened employers to-day is not to obtain the cheapest labor but the most intelligent service. The true policy of the workingman is, therefore, not agitation but education.

The organization through the aid of capital of large industrial operations, superseding former small independent industries, is a frequent source of lamentation on the part of well-meaning philanthropists and others, on the theory that the small merchant has been injured thereby. This is probably true in isolated instances, but the evidence that the wage-earner (the subject of our discussion) has been benefited by improved regulations, superior factory buildings, and amelioration of exhausting toil, under modern methods, is overwhelming.

Moreover, the employment of large capital and improved machinery has enormously increased production and decreased cost to the consumer. Wages are higher and cost of living is lower than formerly. The average wage-earner in America lives today in a manner quite superior to the small manufacturer of former days. The large factories employ armies of skilled operatives many of whom would be incompetent to conduct even small industries successfully. They are reasonably insured of a fixed income, and are often enabled, by saving a portion of their wages, to become small capitalists themselves. Capital is, after all, nothing more than the aggregate savings of labor. The great financial operations are conducted by the aid of these savings of the masses, otherwise the thrifty workingman could receive no interest on his deposit in the savings bank. The individual millionaire is a much less important factor in the world's work than the socialistic agitator would have us believe.

The "good old times" are hallowed in our recollections and in our traditions, but when subjected to critical comparison with the improved civilization of modern times, we find, I think, that the